What image comes to your mind when I say the following words – a school teacher, an army officer, an app developer, an entrepreneur? Aren’t you guilty of imagining a female school teacher, a male army officer and also a male app developer? I am sure majority of you are! Ms. Indu Jain (Chairman Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd), Ms. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw (founder Chairman and MD, Biocon Limited), Ms Indra Nooyi (CFO and President of PepsiCo), Ms. Punita Arora ( first female Vice Admiral of Indian Navy), Ms. Divya Ajith Kumar (first female to be selected for the ‘Sword of Honour’), Ms. Gunjan Saxena (first female Indian Air Force officer to fly in a combat zone.) – This list has many names ranging from varied professions which break the society’s notion of categorizing a job for a certain gender and hence are a tight slap on our faces.
Nobody knows the scenario better than those who are a part of it or those who aspire to be in that scenario someday. Although there are a lot of professions which today are being gender defined, from here on in this post I put forth the views of an army aspirant, an app developer and a school teacher about the skewed gender ratio in these professions. Read on.
Army Officer
I asked a male final year student (armed forces aspirant belonging to an army background) about their gender being the dominant one in armed forces. On the condition of anonymity, he came forward with the following reply. On being asked about his view regarding male domination, he said that the society has always perceived men as the stronger ones and that is why they are in majority in the forces. He says that women themselves believe in this. It’s not that males stop women from coming up and being a part of the forces. Women themselves don’t consider this as a job suitable for them. He adds that the job is being done by those for whom it is meant. He says no to the question that is there an imbalance in functioning due to the gender domination. He adds, “There is no imbalance but I surely do believe that if more women are given core duties then it will have a positive impact on the efficiency of work being carried out in the forces.”
School teacher
Mrs. Mamta Sharma has been working as a TGT in Apeejay School Pitampura for the past 17 years now. She has an overall experience of 23 years as a school teacher. On being asked the reason for the highly skewed ratio of males and females in school teaching, she says societal perception of school teaching as a job is responsible for this to a very large extent. According to her, there is a mindset that the job of a school teacher is a good option for girls because of proper timings. Girls can look after their families too with this job. When asked that how can this ratio be brought to a balance in future, she says that there should be a fixed number of males and females that are employed as teaching staff members. Say if you have 20 members in the teaching staff, schools should make sure that they at least employ 10 males as staff members. This will help balance the ratio. A balanced ratio according to her will also lead to a better ratio tomorrow in the profession. She explains that seeing almost equal number of males and females in the teaching staff will help break the perception of students that only girls can turn to teaching. If students will find male teachers in schools only then will they believe that even males can take up this profession. Only then will the male students consider it seriously as a profession.
App Developer
Ask him the name of the app which he developed and proudly comes the reply, “College Assistant. It’s available on Play Store.” He says he has three more apps “currently under construction”. Interestingly, he is still a final year computer science student of Jamia Hamdard University. He started with app developing so as to practice Java for future job purposes. When asked about the male dominated app development industry, he replies on the condition of anonymity that yes, the industry is totally male dominated. He further added, “In my batch in college there are a very limited number of girls since it’s a technical course and those which are there prefer going for masters and then getting into teaching.” According to him, this industry is male dominated only in our country and not overseas. He supports his point by saying that “when you search for projects online or post questions online regarding the problems you are facing while at work, you will find that there are a good number of females replying to your questions. Google has female tutors giving tech tutorials.” When asked that what according to him is the reason for such low numbers of females in this field, he lists quite a few. Firstly he says that the job of a software developer is extremely challenging. IT sector throws constant challenges which majority of the girls don’t prefer facing because we bind them with the notion that their career isn’t the only thing they have to concentrate on. Software development requires 24*7 dedication and as you move up the ladder in the organization, more and more is expected from you. Another reason can be that if you decide to stay in India and work in this sector then you have to settle for comparatively lesser pay because there are only a handful companies which pay the deserved salary at lower posts in the ladder. It’s going to take ample number of years before you finally reach the 45k-50k pay bracket. On the other hand, this is the bracket you will begin with if you take up teaching at the university level. He concludes by saying that a lot needs to be done before we finally see a balanced gender ratio in this industry.
There can be nothing worse for a profession than to be associated with a gender tag like a “pink collar profession” or any such gender related tag.Neither is a penis your ticket to a successful career be it any profession nor is a vagina a determining yardstick of your professional interests. I would conclude by saying that if he wants to teach in a school, let him. If she wants to join the army, let her! If she wants to rule the business world, let her! If he wants to be in the nursing job, let him! Let interest and passion be the yardsticks. Not gender.
– Paranjaya Mehra
Perfectly portrayed the reality that the society is facing and turnig deaf ears towards it. Women empowerment and gender sensitisation …etc. topics like such need to talked and discussed in order to uproot this Gender Disparity prevailing in the society!
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Perfect analysis of our society complemented with great examples and stats…In a country like our where we have double standards for everything…gender sensitisation is a long road ahead.Imagine a young man introducing a pilot wife or a girl introducing a chef husband to their families.I feel the educated youth is at least taking note and working towards a more balanced society….economically and socially. A change can only come when they will be able to convince and change the mentality of everyone around…Very courageous of young ones like you to bring these kind of topics into discussions…
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I totally agree with your thought.
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